PITTSBURGH — There was hesitation in ruling out Ryan McDonagh for the entire Rangers’ first-round playoff series against the Penguins, which starts Wednesday night at CONSOL Energy Center. Yet coach Alain Vigneault wasn’t exactly preparing for the captain’s return from his right-hand injury anytime soon.

“I would say, at this point, there is a chance that he might be able to play — at some point,” Vigneault said cautiously.

His replacement appears to be 22-year-old rookie Brady Skjei, who played in the team’s final three regular-season games and spent Tuesday’s practice paired with Dan Boyle.

Vigneault said he was leaving his final lineup decision to Wednesday morning, but he liked the fact Skjei was a lefty, making for three lefty-right combos.

It also helps that Skjei is a terrific skater, and moves the puck well to start transition. If he has a deficiency, it’s in his own end and the occasional turnover, which seems to be the risk-reward Vigneault was willing to take over the physicality of another rookie, Dylan McIlrath, whose insertion would have likely moved Boyle to his unnatural left side.

“There’s no doubt that Skjei does skate well and does move the puck well,” Vigneault said. “But I do think that when we have tried the two righties together, it’s a little bit more challenging. Now, we’ve got Skjei, [and] in the games that he’s played, he’s performed well and definitely shown that he can skate at this level and move the puck.Those are two things that we like from our backend.”

Defenseman Dan Girardi participated fully in practice and is set to return after missing the final two games of the regular season with an upper-body injury. He paired with Marc Staal in practice to create a duo that is likely strapped with matching up against Sidney Crosby’s top line whenever Vigneault can make it work.

That likely would leave the Keith Yandle-Kevin Klein duo to deal with the line occupied by speed wingers Carl Hagelin and Phil Kessel.

Vigneault remembers his two years coaching Hagelin well, but now that the speedy winger is a member of the Penguins, the task is to try to stop him.

“Everybody, especially us, know what type of player he is and what he can bring to a team,” said Vigneault, whose team decided to trade Hagelin before this season because of salary-cap issues. “Unfortunately for us, we had cap issues last year and couldn’t make it work. If we could have been able to keep Hags, we would have kept him, everybody knows that. But on that side, he knows us and we know him, so it probably balances itself out.”

Vigneault likes to have eight defensemen for practices, so presumed healthy scratch forward Oscar Lindberg switched positions and skated with McIlrath on Tuesday.

The team has considered calling veteran righty blueliner Raphael Diaz up from AHL Hartford, but his injury woes throughout the year have put that in question.

Vigneault said he thought Diaz was supposed to play for the Wolf Pack on Wednesday in Toronto, but he was unsure.

“He’s definitely somebody that we would have in our conversation,” Vigneault said. “But the conversation have been short because he’s been hurt.”